


Not Waving, Drowning.

by Milligan (Blackheathen)



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:20:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24833725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackheathen/pseuds/Milligan
Summary: Sarah chooses a different option in the Well of Hands.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 16





	Not Waving, Drowning.

Not Waving, Drowning

I think I'm getting smarter! Sarah knew that had she not been free-falling down a dark hole in the ground, her face would have been as red as the lipstick in her pocket. Sarah Williams, will you never learn? What a thing to say, in here of all places!

At least she wasn't falling anymore. She had come to a rather abrupt halt and her stomach lurched upwards under  its own momentum, cutting off her scream. For a moment she saw prickles of light in the corners of her eyes and she felt sick and dizzy. It was like being suspended in  midair . She had stopped, but she wasn't touching anything remotely solid under her feet.

Rather, something was touching her. Holding  her and pinching too!

"Stop it! You're hurting me!"

Something chuckled in her ear, and once more Sarah had the opportunity to curse her words as she was released from whatever held her to plummet downwards again.

"Nooooo....."

More things reached out of the darkness to seize her as she fell. Many things, with eerie little fingers that roamed over her and ventured into and over places that no one ever had before. Sarah stifled another scream with a great deal of effort. She was determined not to cry. She knew, somehow, that  _ he _ would be watching her now. Let him laugh, if he would, but he would not see tears. She decided to relax, just a little bit. The grasping things loosened their hold too, but they did not let her go.

Sarah's eyes were adjusting. Craning her neck to look upwards, she could make out a small bright disc, and through it, the sky above. It wasn't a blue sky, but a pale golden  colour . Strange how she had not noticed  its beauty before.

Now for the hard part. Tipping forward slightly, she looked down. The tunnel wound down into further gloom, but Sarah was sure she could see something at the bottom.  The pale gleam of metal, shaped like a grid. Just like the door of a cage. Sarah shivered before she could stop herself. Cages. Was there nothing more sinister to her? She had spent her whole life avoiding such things, not even  realizing that her efforts to escape life had caused the most effective walls of all to be built around her.

The things were talking to her. They called themselves Helping Hands, and they were. Sarah could see them clearer now. Hundreds of hands reaching out from moss covered walls. All too human-looking hands, making faces and speaking with musical voices. There were young ones, older hands, hands belonging to both men and women. It was not the strangest thing Sarah had seen in the Labyrinth, but it was one of the more disturbing. What had made such things? What sick, twisted mind had devised such a trap? And where were the bodies that moved these hands?

They were asking a question. It took some concentration for Sarah to focus on it. She was all too aware of the grinning disembodied hands that stared without  eyes, or touched. She was panicking again, and she knew that wasn't a good thing. She needed all her wits.

"So, which way do you want to go?" the Hands chorused.

"W...which way?" Sarah repeated uneasily. Careful now, Williams. Watch what you say! What's said is said. She remembered that silken, cold voice.

"Up...or down" sang the Hands. They spoke with an air of annoyance now. Or maybe they were getting tired of holding her. If she didn't make a decision, would they make it for her?

Sarah looked down once more. The grate of metal looked solid, but below it was only blackness unpenetrated by any light at all. Sarah had no doubt that the cage door would open if she landed on it, and likely close behind her. And then what? As if in answer to her thought, there came from below the barest of sounds.  A soft, shuffling sound magnified in the close air to sound as if some huge beast had come close to peer upwards, perhaps to peruse  its latest meal.

Over her head, the pale gold of the Labyrinth sky flickered. Was  it human nature to desire the light? And yet ..... nothing in this place was what it seemed. What seemed easy must also be a trap, surely? Someone had said something to her when she had first walked through the gates. Had it been Hoggle? The strange little man, so sharp tongued and derisive, yet had he given her the most effective tool to use in solving the  puzzle?  _ Me _ _? I wouldn't go either way _ . That had been Hoggle. It had such a glib, matter of fact statement and it had driven Sarah to distraction ever since. And more particularly since she had discovered he had been right all along. But he was on her side, wasn't he?

Up, down. Up or down? Down to darkness, and the least obvious choice. Upwards to blank sky and the most obvious choice that someone would make. The Hands waited expectantly. They had done this before, Sarah realised with a pang. It was too rehearsed, like a well worn riddle that everyone had heard but still waited in rapture for the punchline.

"Up, down, up, down, up down....." chattered the Hands.

Say  your right words.  _ Me? I wouldn't go either way. _

"I....choose, neither way" Sarah said. She addressed the pair of Hands that hovered closest to her face. Silence invaded the tunnel as the Hands stopped their muttering. It was impossible to be sure because the Hands had no eyes to speak with, but Sarah was almost certain that they were surprised by her answer.

"Neither way" the Hand-faces whispered. There seemed a collective intake of breaths. Then....

"NEITHER WAY! SHE CHOSE NEITHER UP NOR DOWN?"

"Was...was that wrong?" Sarah said, her voice rising.

"Too late now....." shouted the Hands. They called to each other, back and forth across the tunnel. Sarah felt herself begin to move, and true to their word, she went neither up, nor down, but sideways. The Hands hummed a jaunty tune as they passed her from one to the other, all the while drawing her closer to the green hued walls where their collective array of elbows jutted out. Sarah felt the wet ooze of the surface against her own hands as she reached out to try and halt her movement. It was cold, and slimy, and all of a sudden Sarah knew that she didn't want to touch any more of it, not at all. Because it pulsed, like it was alive.

"No, no, wait, please" she shouted. "I didn't mean  it!

"Oh you didn't, did you?” 

Sarah threw her feet forward, up against the approaching sides, but to her dismay they went straight through. There was nothing on the other side that she could feel and use as leverage. Inch by inch, she was drawn forward. The Hands had little care now as they manhandled her.  Bruising , crushing, tearing at clothing and hair as they drew her forward. Sarah screamed and no longer felt ashamed at showing fear.

"Help me, someone help me!"

"But we are helping! We're the Helping Hands!". Odd how they sounded both  jubilant and troubled at the same time.

Sarah was desperate. Her legs had disappeared into the wall and her hips were being drawn in now, but still she fought with what little strength remained. She managed to get one hand free to beat and claw helplessly at the arms and hands, but to no avail. They were too strong, and too many. She watched stupefied as her lower torso was drawn in, then panic crested as her ribcage felt crushing pressure, cutting off her breath. She was being turned, she realised. Slowly her body was being twisted so that what was left of her face was looking downwards, down to where the frightful cage lay waiting.

Then, only blackness. The clammy wall enclosed her completely. It crawled over her face. It clung to every pore in her skin, invading her mouth and nose like some grim tongue tasting her flesh. Devoid of the ability to scream in horror, Sarah could only struggle in mute terror, but it was like running in a dream, so slow and useless. She wouldn't die here, surely? It was only a game, wasn't it?

As her mind floated away, it was only with the barest of threads that she knew she was moving again. Something had wrapped itself around her, like vast tree roots curling around rock and pulling relentlessly. It hurt, but Sarah knew she would bear it, because even now she was feeling her feet come free, her toes striking some hard surface behind her. She was passing through the wall to someplace else. Perhaps even to freedom. Perhaps she had chosen correctly after all.

Sarah kicked as her legs came free, followed by her hips, stomach and finally her chest. She breathed in with a relief and as her lungs  expanded she took in a great rush of cold  slimy fluid. Her shoulders popped out of the wall with an audible squelch and then with a bone wrenching rush, her head. She was free, but all Sarah could think about was ridding herself of the horrid touch. She tilted forwards as she vomited a great gout of green tinted water, or at least she hoped it was only water.

She tried to bring her hand to wipe at her face, clear her eyes, when her whole body rippled in shock. Her arms, she couldn't move her arms! She was standing upright, facing what was obviously the other side of the wall of hands, but her arms were still embedded in the surface. With a sickening  realisation , Sarah knew that her hands and forearms were even now protruding into the pit tunnel that she had only just escaped from. One of the Helping Hands on the other side was patting her arm, as if to say,  _ there  _ _ there _ to a frightened child.

"Oh, no no no". Sarah braced her legs and tried to pull her arms free, but they wouldn't even budge. Rather, it felt like her shoulders were being dislocated. Tendons twisted and popped under the strain. Tears that she could not dash away ran down her face. This was awful, far worse than anything she could have imagined. Trapped. From places both far away and close by, she could hear them, the others just like her. Calling, crying, singing in addled verses of their aloneness, pleading.

Through blurred eyes she looked around her. A tiny chamber only slightly wider and taller than she herself, like a living coffin. Or, a coffin for the living. Down, at the clean stone floor, ignoring the wiry black arms that wrapped themselves around her.......

"It's pointless to struggle Sarah". He was breathing behind her ear. Sarah felt her knees go weak from fear, but still he held her upright, those long black gloves supporting her weight easily. Those same arms that had pulled her free from the wall, but only as far as he wished. Sarah was as weak as a kitten, but she kicked out with all her might. Some part of her connected with flesh, and she heard him grunt softly, then hiss in the following silence.

"But if you insist" he growled, as something warm and wet traced a trail along the back of her neck. The shape of his mouth pressed against her shoulder as his gloved hands reached to caress her stomach, moving in idle circles upwards to brush the line of her breast.

"Don't...."

"As you wish". Somehow, he had slipped in between her and the wall. His eyes, one so piercing and the other so dead, bore into her, and she couldn't escape it any more than she could escape his touch. He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. A cat might smile so at the mouse. Yet his touch on her face was soft, wiping away the dirt that clung to it with the edge of his sleeve. Stooping to kiss her mouth, he was effectively trapped between her arms, but it was an illusion that Sarah did not dare to pursue. He trailed his mouth across to her ear, whispering.

"And here you were thinking you were the only one looking for someone in this place"

"What....will you do to me?" Hate warred with terror and made her voice shake.

The Goblin King drew back. His smooth ice white skin was smudged across the cheek from where he had laid it upon hers. It gave Sarah a strange sense of satisfaction to see it. He tilted her face with one finger under her chin.

"I haven't decided. One must be careful with  one's choices, and I most of all. And yet I fear I chose poorly, with you"

He was gone. There was a tingling coldness along her skin where his body had touched hers. Sarah sagged against the restraints that were her own arms, now rapidly becoming a living part of the Labyrinth. The other hands were reaching out to her still, but Sarah had never been so alone in her life. Don't leave me, please. Her heartbeats filled the tiny stone  chamber. Me ? I wouldn't go either way

Tricked.

Down in the oubliette, Hoggle lit his lantern and scowled back up the tunnel. He sighed when he saw the slender limbs of the girl, stuck fast in the wall. He knew all too well where the rest of her was. He also knew what Jareth would be planning, wondering how long he would make this one wait. They all waited for him, those faceless hands. They all hungered for their King....eventually.

"Pah!" he spat in derision. Everyone had a job to do in the Labyrinth, and Hoggle was not excepted. And this one was a silly chit of a girl anyway, all too easily misled. Humans these days just weren't worth the bother. They were just so predictable.

Oubliettes. It was true, the Labyrinth was full of them.


End file.
